(CNN) - Sen. John McCain on Wednesday said Mitt Romney missed an opportunity to go after the president over Libya in the second presidential debate.

Asked whether Romney failed to press President Barack Obama on the administration's handling of last month's consulate attack, the Arizona senator said "in a way, he did" on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360."FULL POST

Athens, Ohio (CNN) – A standard line in the president's stump speech that touts his administration's efforts to target al Qaeda has been missing from recent stops, in the wake of the Libya terror attacks.

"I said we'd refocus on the people who actually attacked us on 9/11, and today al Qaeda is on the run and Osama bin Laden is dead," the president has said.FULL POST

(CNN) – Responding to a question at Tuesday's presidential debate that referred to reintroducing the Clinton-era assault weapons ban that expired in 2004, Republican candidate Mitt Romney said that it was already illegal to own those kinds of guns in the United States.

The claim: "Yeah, I'm not in favor of new pieces of legislation on - on guns and taking guns away or making certain guns illegal. We, of course, don't want to have automatic weapons, and that's already illegal in this country to have automatic weapons," Romney said.

(CNN) – After a day dominated by Mitt Romney's "binders full of women" comment from the second presidential debate, the GOP presidential nominee defended himself against the tsunami of social media swipes and blatant jabs at Romney's expense.

"I understand the challenges women face and want to make it easier for them in the workplace," Romney wrote on Twitter Wednesday afternoon.FULL POST

Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama's vow Tuesday to try and ban assault weapons prompted the National Rifle Association to immediately modify its political advertising campaign against Obama in seven toss-up states.

The NRA is spending $1.5 million on television commercials in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin and an additional $800,000 on online ads in the aforementioned states as well as Colorado, Iowa and Nevada each week, an NRA official tells CNN. The initial ads featured a broad theme that blamed Obama for the country's debt, stated the nation's sovereignty was threatened and warned that people's rights were being attacked, including the Second Amendment during his presidency.FULL POST

(CNN) - Mitt Romney's assertion In Tuesday's presidential debate that he'd "like to understand who it was that did this" - referring to "Operation Fast and Furious" - was noteworthy following the release of a lengthy investigative report.

The Republican candidate said the botched Southwest border gun-running operation "had been investigated to a degree."

CNN's GUT CHECK | for October 17, 2012 | 5 p.m.
– n. a pause to assess the state, progress or condition of the political news cycle

THE DAY AFTER: BOTH CANDIDATES CLAIM VICTORY…

– Obama: The choice is a ‘sketchy’ one –PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AT A CAMPAIGN EVENT IN IOWA: “Let's recap what we learned last night. His tax plan doesn't add up. His jobs plan doesn't create jobs. His deficit reduction plan adds to the deficit. So Iowa – everybody here has heard of the New Deal, you've heard of the Fair Deal, you've heard of the square deal – Mitt Romney is trying to sell you a sketchy deal.”

– Romney: Obama has one more debate to find a Plan for the Next Four Years –MITT ROMNEY AT A CAMPAIGN EVENT IN VIRGINIA: “I think it is interesting that the president still doesn't have an agenda for a second term. Don’t you think that it is time for him to finally put together a vision of what he would do over the next four years if he were elected? I mean he has got to come up with that over this weekend because there is only one debate left on Monday. I just think the American people had expected that the president of the United States would be able to describe what he is going to do in the next four years. But he can't. He can't even explain what he has done in the last four years.”

CNN's GUT CHECK | for October 17, 2012 | 5 p.m.
– n. a pause to assess the state, progress or condition of the political news cycle

THE DAY AFTER: BOTH CANDIDATES CLAIM VICTORY…

– Obama: The choice is a ‘sketchy’ one –PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AT A CAMPAIGN EVENT IN IOWA: “Let's recap what we learned last night. His tax plan doesn't add up. His jobs plan doesn't create jobs. His deficit reduction plan adds to the deficit. So Iowa – everybody here has heard of the New Deal, you've heard of the Fair Deal, you've heard of the square deal – Mitt Romney is trying to sell you a sketchy deal.”

– Romney: Obama has one more debate to find a Plan for the Next Four Years –MITT ROMNEY AT A CAMPAIGN EVENT IN VIRGINIA: “I think it is interesting that the president still doesn't have an agenda for a second term. Don’t you think that it is time for him to finally put together a vision of what he would do over the next four years if he were elected? I mean he has got to come up with that over this weekend because there is only one debate left on Monday. I just think the American people had expected that the president of the United States would be able to describe what he is going to do in the next four years. But he can't. He can't even explain what he has done in the last four years.”